Category Archives: life

Cairns and wonderwork

Here’s my near 96 year old Mom sizing up an Andy Goldsworthy sculptural Cairn at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LaJolla, CA. Cairns are markers, to show presence and history. Which do you think is the true Cairn? My Mom or Goldsworthy’s Iowa limestone construction?  I love Goldsworthy’s work, I love my Mom more. She is the one who introduced me to the wonders in museums. She is fading now, though Goldsworthy’s stuff will likely remain for a longer time, it too will not last forever.

Mom and I went into the museum and her most alert moment was comparing her walking cane with one of the guard’s. That was sweet. Two broken pilgrims comparing their supports. Then she was happy to sit on a bench overlooking the Pacific (always loved a good view, always had an eye for the best art in the place). The show on the walls was interesting, but she chose the best view, and then preferred the reproductions on the paper pages of the museum catalogue, tho the real pieces were steps away on the walls. It’s a wonder I can even take her into museums still, that she wants to even go. I mused on the meaning of art as she looked at the Pacific and I looked quickly at the pieces on the walls.

Vincent Van Gogh once said to his brother Theo that the greatest artist (in the whole place) is the One who can work in human flesh. I read that statement while in college and it shaped my future, directing a lot of choices I have made since then. My Mom is one of His canvasses. And He is not done yet.

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Spending

I reorganized my studio a couple weeks ago, clearing away mess, finding some old gems in the midst (that started sparks), setting up an ideas parking spot, better configuring cords and other safety issues, making a wider work area. . . it has been pretty liberating and the hours I have spent there so far have been fruitful and hold promise for more. This is one of the prevailing ideas for this year: “SPEND IT” Spend the time, spend the risks, spend the agony at wondering what in the world I am really doing. Spend the materials, just use them up! Don’t leave them in drawers, they are waiting for something to happen. Spend all the over-thinking and the self-critiquing, just spend it into more work that needs to be thought out and critiqued. Work bunches at a time, something is going to happen.
Here is one successful result, done primarily with cold wax. It is called “The Fields are White”

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no image…just a flash on the retina

Today we were with friends on a lake, the Fall colors are near peak, and my eyes kept drifting past faces and drinking in the landscape beyond. It was enchanting, winsome, just deeply beautiful. I kept taking pictures and then looking at the result that had been translated to pixels …which was just plain disappointing. There is nothing like the retinal receiving of the immediate full display: citrons and pale salmons next to dusty tans, lime yellows next to rusts and light cherry reds, sages and spruce, with lavender shadows, oh glory. Next time I just need to have my paints right there on the boat, and freshly mix what my senses are shouting. My retina does not remember well, for it has moved onto the next thing, like the car keys and the night crème, what a sorry shame.

Last week I was in Philadelphia helping my daughter move into their apartment. We made time on the last day to go over to the Philadelphia Art Museum. I had heard about their current show: “Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus.” Rembrandt is an important reference for me, though I am not a figurative painter. His deep psychological investigation into his subjects was groundbreaking; and his illustrations of the Biblical stories showed far more than just a liturgical compliance but rather a deeply personal engagement.

I grew up going to The Art Institute with my Mom. I took our daughters and son often to museums too and it is still something we like to do when we can together; so this was the carrot before our horses. But my daughter, who lives in Philly cautioned as we drove up to park, “you know Mom, this might be expensive…”  Ever the can-do kid am I, “let’s just see what they say.” Well, it’s been too long since I was in that Museum! The traveling show tickets were way more than I remember. And so we thought, let’s just go in and at least look in the shop at the catalogue to see what they have gathered and make a decision from there –no way for that either: just getting past the entry desk was a pricey proposition. This was a shock to my system. We fumed, turned instinctively together and walked out, and that too was a sorry shame. In fact it was more than that, it felt like money changers in the temple! “I can’t look at Rembrandt’s effort at capturing the sublime unless I cough up so much cash?”

I know, I know, it costs to gather and ship and hang etc. But c’mon! It seems to me that there is a diminishing return here where they have priced themselves beyond a lot of people who would otherwise not only help them pay for their work at putting on this show, but would also fill the rooms and then take the images home in their spirits and into their own work. I looked later to see what the mission statement of this museum is and no luck, except for a statement about acquisitions. Is this only a money making operation then?

“Are you ok, Mom?” “I’m just sad…I really wanted to see how he tried to capture that face directly, a reproduction on a page is not the same…” and then it occurred to me…one day I will see the real thing on my retina, and I just might be standing near Rembrandt when that happens.

My retina has long since shifted thousands of times since that opportunity so close to the hanging Rembrandts. And I likely would not now be able to remember deeply the visual impression anyway, nor be able to put it to words.

But what I saw today nobody had to hang, or ship from far away places. Those leaves have been waiting there all summer for their glorious changes, gathered into a sublimely random assortment of joy. It was free. It was available for anyone who wanted to look. And it was a flash on my retina from His heart.

 

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in the image of my father

I saw something last night that caused tears to just stream down my face. It was somberly, maybe one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The whole day was somber, the 10th anniversary of 9/11. This date is now a euphemism for what we still can hardly grasp – that our nation came under attack by 19 men, driven by some kind of hateful ideology that could justify their driving planes full of innocent men, women and children at high speed, full of fuel, into some of our iconic landmarks. I lived not too far from NYC then, I remember the incalculable shock as events unfolded quickly. I remember when the towers INCREDIBLY collapsed, and the aching realization that thousands and thousands of souls were turned to dust in seconds. This is still unimaginable to me.

Those towers were a part of my own life. I toured the 78th floor in college, wearing a hard hat with a team sponsored by the Port Authority, for a project we were doing to design the space on that floor. My twin girls dressed up as the twin towers one Halloween. My husband and I celebrated our 10th anniversary at the Windows on the World restaurant in the North tower. We would often take visitors to see these amazing buildings. If you were close to them you could not see their size for how hard it was to crane your neck directly up to see such height. One needs to understand these buildings were packed with offices and people on twin levels of 110 floors each! Estimates are that at capacity these buildings held between 10-25,000 people each on a working day. This is what I was thinking about as the towers pancaked into dust and ash. It is absolutely incredible then that the actual death toll in those two towers, not counting the firemen who came inside, was only just over 2000! We don’t celebrate this number as we do not and cannot celebrate this day, but it is important to mark it. It is crucial to try to understand what events like this can teach us. There were several things we did yesterday and contemplated yesterday that helped us to piece together some meaning from such wanton evil. Yes, evil, and we are naïve to think it could be called anything else but what it is.

What tuned and melted my heart yesterday, however, was a program I saw at the end of the day. On it was a slide show of images. Dianne Sawyer has been apparently marking each year since our 9/11 by gathering the babies born to widows, most of them the widows of the brave firefighters who ran into the buildings. Over 3000 children lost their fathers this sad day. What ABC had done was to quietly show, one after another, photos of the fathers and their 10 year old children. There on their faces is a mark of connection. These children never knew their Dads, but their faces show their Dads. This is such a picture, in varying kinds of uniqueneses of what it means to be “in the image of my father.” These Dads are gone, but their children carry them in their own DNA. It is a most beautiful thing.

My soul knew it before my mind even understood. My body responded before I knew what was happening. This was beauty, and beauty often carries such an ache of recognition and longing.

Vincent Van Gogh said in one of his letters to his brother, that ‘the greatest artist is the one who works in human flesh.’ I have often thought of this, for it is true. We can’t do this kind of art, but the One who said that we all are “made in His image” can and He does.

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